Make a Chess Board out of Legos

I’m a sucker for Lego projects. It’s fun to take these blocks to different places beyond the purchased kit or the basic things your kids might come up with to build on their own.

I’m blown away by this Lego chess set from Teach Beside Me. Such a brilliant use of black and white blocks.

Building it is a great STEM challenge (even little kids can do the pattern making involved in making the board), and of course playing chess is a great learning activity because you have to be able to remember the rules for the different pieces, use strategy, take turns, pay attention, etc.

(I don’t actually remember how to play chess, but Chess Kid looks like a good place to start for kids and adults who need a refresher.)

I’m guessing you could make it a checkerboard, too, using the little single round pieces as your checkers.

Do you play chess with your kids? I’d love to know at what age you started and how it went.

[Photo via Teach Beside Me.]

Check out this Brick Subscription box, Building kits delivered to your door each month.

A great gift idea for little Lego building engineers.

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Free Black History Month Coloring Sheets and…

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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